


Ilia in the Rafters

by Kiiratam



Series: The Weissian Conspiracy [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Healthy Marriage, Light Angst, light fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 12:57:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20174635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: Ilia just wants a quiet place to think about her relationship with Blake.Unfortunately, it's tea time. And Kali and Ghira have a lot to talk about.Takes place between Volumes 5 and 6. (My BMBLB fic index)





	Ilia in the Rafters

Ilia didn't mean to eavesdrop. Really, she just wanted a quiet corner to crawl into and think. But she didn't have her own room in the Mistral estate the Menagerie leadership was using. No one did. She shared a room with Blake. Which, on one hand, was amazing. She'd literally had dreams that started like that.

  
On the other, it was terrible. Because these weren't her dreams. Blake hadn't spontaneously declared her love, and pulled her into bed. Or done anything to encourage her romantically. Despite what Ilia had told her back in Menagerie. Even though Blake knew that Ilia had loved her for years.

  
...Though, Ilia had followed that up with trying to kidnap Blake and send her back to Adam. But Blake hadn't condemned her for that. Had spared her. Still trusted her enough to sleep in the same room.

  
Ilia needed time to wrap her head around that. Somewhere where that didn't smell like Blake, where she could actually think, without melting into adolescent fantasies.

  
Which is how she came to be sitting on the exposed rafters of one of the estate's sitting rooms. She blended in, more from habit than anything. But it was a good habit. Especially when everyone other than the Belladonnas wasn't entirely sure about her loyalties. She'd caught some looks that she would have liked to repay in pain. But she didn't want to hurt Blake more. So she'd taken the looks, and tried to forget them.

  
It wasn't working. Just another warped piece of the puzzle of her and Blake. She didn't even hear the door open, didn't notice who had come in until she heard Blake's name.

  
"And did you ask Blake about any of this?" Kali set the tea service down, and started arranging places for herself and her husband.

  
"I wanted to take her friend's measure." Ghira lowered himself to the floor mat, sitting cross-legged. "I didn't want to fight Blake over it."

  
Kali sighed. "So you knew she'd object."

  
"Kali, she would have done the same thing for that boy." Ilia could see the tension vibrate through his shoulders. "Our daughter hasn't has the best judgment in the past."

  
"Ghira, like it or not, she's an adult now. And even comparing Yang to him - really!" Kali's ears flattened.

  
"All we had was second hand knowledge! From what we could drag out of Blake, and her jabbermouth of a friend. I needed to find things out for myself!"

  
"Yes, you always do." Kali poured the tea for herself and Ghira. "I know its hard, being at such a remove now. But we're not in the thick of it anymore. We need to be able to trust what others tell us. There's too much for us to do; we can't confirm every report ourselves."

  
Ghira took a breath of his tea. "Local?"

  
Nodding, Kali said "Mistral Green. I thought Blake would be joining us. And maybe Ilia." Here, Ilia thought, would probably be her last chance to announce herself. If she listened any longer, she wouldn't be able to make any real excuses. She would have been spying. But... she wanted to know more. Maybe they'd say more about Blake, something that could help.

  
Taking a sip, Ghira relaxed a touch. "It is excellent. Thank you, dear." He set the teacup down. "I agree with you; there's too much for us to look into everything. But this is Blake, not politics."

  
"But they need to be handled with equal care. We've thrown our lives against the scale, trying to get it to tilt. Trying to upset an unacceptable balance. Trying to push past the tipping point, into equal rights. Weighing every action, trying to act for maximum effect. But Blake isn't the Four Kingdoms. She's not dozens of Council members, thousands of bureaucrats, reams of legal code. She's one girl. If you just barge in and throw your weight around-" Kali picked up her own tea cup, took a drink. "Well, we've already seen what she'll do."

  
Multiple times, Ilia thought. Adam did the same thing, pressed her too hard, and she just faded away. Like she had used her Semblance. Ilia had a sudden premonition. If she confessed her love to Blake again, Blake would just vanish again. Maybe she would anyway, reuniting with her friends from Beacon. But if Ilia asked too much, pushed too hard, she might never see Blake again. Just her ghost.

  
Ghira took a sip, held his tea cup close to his mouth. "I don't want to lose her again."

  
Reaching out, Kali laid a hand on his forearm. "We won't. She stayed away because she was scared of what we'd say. That we'd gloat, and throw her mistakes in her face. And that's my fault, more than yours. Neither of us liked that boy, but I tried to point out his flaws to Blake." Her ears drooped. "I forgot who I was talking to, and tore him to shreds. To a girl in love with him. Of course her back went up. Of course she stopped listening to us." Ilia looked away, tried not to think of her own role in that. Tried, perversely, to give Kali privacy while spying on her.

  
Putting his cup down, Ghira wrapped his wife in a tight embrace. "It's all right, Kali. She came back. She knows we love her."

  
Kali sniffed. "I know. And we need to tell her that more often. But we also need to show it."

  
"By letting her control our access to her friends?"

  
"I'm afraid so. I've asked Blake about meeting Yang, multiple times. But she keeps avoiding the question. So- we're left with our secondhand information. And your talk with Yang. We can't take that back, so we may as well learn from it." Kali broke the embrace to pick up her tea. "What did you learn, my impetuous husband?"

  
Taking a drink of his tea, Ghira sat for moment. Ilia waited. She'd picked up bits and pieces about Blake's Beacon friends - one of them was a Schnee! - but apart from their names, there was so much she didn't know.

  
"She can think. I put her a very bad position, and she still managed to surprise me. She may have learned more about me than I did about her."

  
"Hopefully, she learned enough to not judge you too harshly."

  
Ghira set his cup down. "We shouldn't rely on that. I put her in a _very_ bad position. She thought I was Adam at first."

  
"And she still came out to meet you?"

  
"She did. Alone, in pyjamas and unlaced boots. Barely armed."

  
Kali refilled his cup. "How did you manage that?"

  
"I told her she'd never see Blake again if she didn't. And gave her a timer."

  
Her ears twitching, Kali refilled her own cup, and adjusted the fall of her clothes. After a minute of blistering silence, she spoke. "She's still willing to die for Blake. Even after what already happened."

  
"Yes."

  
Ilia squeezed her eyes shut, wrapped herself into a ball. She had been about to ship Blake back to Adam. And her real friends, like Sun, like Yang, were willing to fight, suffer and die to prevent that. How could Blake even stand to look at her? Talk to her? Treat her like a friend? She didn't deserve it. Even helping to stop Adam, breaking his control over the White Fang - it wasn't enough. Nothing would be enough to make it up to Blake. Blake deserved better friends than her.

  
Kali's voice drifted up to her. "What else?"

  
"She's scared. For herself, for Blake, for her friends. There's more to this than just Adam. Whoever brought the Grimm to Beacon, Adam was just their catspaw." Ghira snorted. "The Faunus are just another tool. Revolutions are always co-opted by those who want power."

  
"But they're going to fight."

  
"If Yang is anything to go by, they will. And Blake's other team mates are Yang's sister and a Schnee. I doubt any sibling of Yang is a coward. And we know how perniciously tenacious the Schnees are."

  
Kali raised her tea cup. "Weiss won't give up." She took a sip. "We had a chat earlier today."

  
"And now you're on a first name basis with a Schnee. Kali, darling, you never cease to amaze me."

  
"You'd like her."

  
Ghira barked a laugh. "I highly doubt that."

  
"Oh, it would be a struggle. But she'd bring you around." Setting her cup down, she continued. "Eventually, you'd have to admit that the Schnees had produced at least one good." Ilia doubted that, regardless of what Kali thought.

  
"Not on purpose."

  
Kali laughed. "No, certainly not. I doubt her father is pleased _at all_. And that's why, despite yourself, despite her name, you'd like her. Because Weiss isn't going to stop until she's dragged her family name out of the muck." Over Ghira's grumbling, she continued. "Now, was there anything else about Yang?"

  
Ghira took a breath, held it, and blew it out. "She can listen. Read people. In a fight, too, I'm sure, but more importantly, out of one. She tries to understand. Even when it clashes with what she thinks she knows." He half-laughed. "Probably faster at learning than I am, or just less stubborn. But right now - she's hurting. And I don't know if she wants to get better."

  
"That's why Weiss contacted me. She thinks that Yang needs Blake to start healing. Weiss confirmed what Sun had said, and what we thought. They were close at Beacon. And when Blake left-"

  
"-Yang felt like her sacrifice was pointless. She'd thrown herself into the fire to save Blake, and nothing was gained. Blake was still gone."

  
Kali nodded. "I'm sure she understands that isn't true. But you can't reason your way out of how you feel."

  
"We both know you can. It just breaks you in different ways. Turns you into a Atlasian robot." Ghira sighed. "So what do we do? How do we help?"

  
"We do what we've been doing. Tell Blake we love her, keep trying to meet her team. And we support Weiss' plan. Let Blake leave us again. Hope she and Yang can heal together." Kali finished her tea. "We can't force anything."

  
Ghira drained his cup, set it down. "Wait and hope. I had hoped for something more active."

  
"Despite what you learned, more late night visits aren't going to help anything. I wish you'd at least talked to me about it first. I understand why you didn't want to involve Blake, but Ghira- you didn't tell me."

  
"I know. And I'm sorry. You were busy dealing with the Mistral officials, and I got the notion into my head. And I didn't think about it, I just acted. I needed to know more." Ilia felt a sudden flash of sympathy. "Do you think we should tell Blake?"

  
Kali toyed with her tea cup. "No. Right now, it would just be distracting. She knows we're worried about her; she doesn't need to know the extent of our blundering." She set the cup down, looked straight at her husband. "But you are going to make it up to Yang. An apology, if you can manage it. But at the very least, you got your Good Talk with her. You know who she is, where she stands."

  
"She's got guts and brains. She just needs to figure out when to use which." Ghira nodded. "But I have her measure. And I think Blake chose much better this time."

  
"So none of the stern father act you played on Sun?"

  
Ghira shook his head. "None."

  
"All right." Kali started gathering up the dishes. "We have a meeting with the Mistral press in an hour. We should get cleaned up."

  
As the Belladonnas left the room, Ilia pondered. She didn't deserve to have Blake as a friend. But Blake was still willing to be hers. Ilia tried not to focus on 'deserve' and 'owe.' Those were words Adam used. Often. What the humans owed to Faunus. What the Faunus rightfully deserved. She tried to look at it from another perspective, from the perspective of what the White Fang had been before Sienna and Adam.

  
How can we make the humans admit that we're both people? How can we make them to look at themselves, and see the wrongness of what they're doing? How can I be a good friend to Blake? How can I help?

  
Ilia pulled out her scroll. Addressed a message to Sun. <Do you have Weiss Schnee's contact information? I think we need to talk.> She sent it.

  
She waited a few tense minutes, trying to force Kali's comments on the Schnee girl into her head. Trying to see her as an ally.

  
<Uhhhhh, why do you want to? I really hoped we were past the whole angry White Fang thing.>

  
Ilia set her scroll down, and tensed her hands into claws, screaming silently. Took a breath, picked her scroll up again. <It's about Blake.>

  
Another agonizing pause. What mischief was Sun getting into? Why didn't he respond to messages in a timely manner?

  
<...Huh. So Weiss just sent me a message about Blake. Want to meet in the estate courtyard? I'll show you.>

  
<On my way.> Ilia slipped off the rafter, and headed for the courtyard.


End file.
